KING SEEKS ANSWERS TO BOY ADDICT'S PLIGHT

Confusion over who should pay for the treatment of a 14-year-old drug
addict highlighted a longstanding funding problem for youth drug and
alcohol services, Health Minister Annette King said yesterday.

The addict's mother has spoken out about her fear that her son would end up
in "a body bag" while she waded through government agencies trying to get
him help.

Children's Commissioner Roger McClay finally agreed to pick up the $9000
tab for the boy's treatment in the South Island, at Queen Mary Hospital in
Hanmer Springs, after being contacted by the Ohariu-Belmont MP, United NZ
leader Peter Dunne.

The mother said she had not been able to find any agency prepared to pay
for treatment.

The boy was now in the second week of a special adolescent programme and
seemed to be doing well.

The mother told The Dominion she stopped talking about her son's problems
and how she feared for his life about three weeks ago. "I didn't know how
to talk about it any more. I got to the stage where it was too big, and I
thought, 'I can't piece this together in words'."

She discovered that drugs of all descriptions were freely available in the
playground, but that prescription drugs such as Ritalin were particularly
prevalent. The availability of drugs was "mind-boggling".

Yesterday, Mrs King asked the Health Funding Authority what treatment was
available to teen- age addicts in Wellington after it confirmed that no
beds for North Island children were paid for at Queen Mary Hospital.

She promised that part of a $257 million cash injection into mental health
services during the next four years would help deal with any gaps.

Queen Mary's chief executive, Tim Harding, said the drug and alcohol
programme for adolescents was threatened unless it received funding from
the North Island.

The authority's southern region paid for five beds in the unit, and the
Department of Child Youth and Family Services paid for others, but the
hospital was a national one and needed patients from all over New Zealand,
he said.

Mr Dunne was already handling the case of another Wellington boy who needed
treatment at the hospital.

"If all that is stopping the children from getting the treatment they need
is an accident of geography, then that is just not acceptable," he said.